One Crazy Fiber Lady

This is going to be a quick, if picture filled post.  Its been a long day and I still have to wrap their presents for tomorrow.

Well, despite my 4 kid threshhold, the arena full of the ankle biters was a good time.  It was a good, if thankfully short show.  Alex got into it a bit more than Kat, but at least there was no crying to go home.  Just one short complaint about it being loud.  Alex, when tired especially, doesn’t like loud noises and his tolerance for "loud" is very low.  They both napped a bit in the car on the way, so we were covered there. 

Buying the tickets before they went on sale to the general public (my sister sent an early notice email as she has season tickets to the Trenton team that plays there) resulted in pretty darn good seats.  We were 8th row on the floor.  I’ve never had such good seats for a concert, even saw Bruce Springstein during the Born in the USA tour from the second to last row of seats at Giant Stadium and Phil Collins from the very last row in Radio City. 

We arrived early, got some food and found our seats and waited for the show to start.  After about an hour of hearing "where are the Doodlebops?" the show started.  The twins settled back and two of the four seats went to somewhat of a waste.

As an aside, these pairings are a little unusual.  Alex is so much my mother’s boy and Kat is my girl.  For Alex to have curled up in my lap is odd indeed, especially when his "mema" is around.  Never fear, after intermission, all was righted with the world and the pairings of norm took over.

The show was good.  The performers worked really hard.  There was some serious huffing and puffing among them between numbers.  All in all, a very good time.  Here are some pictures of the actual performance:

As this is a purported knitting blog, I have an obligatory knitting photo for y’all.  I finished the back of the childHood sweater last night.  Yes, last night, by somewhere around 9 pm it was done.  I know, shocked me too.  And yes, I did stop to do other things like feed my kids, entertain them for a bit and then get them off to bed. After dinner tonight, I started on the left front, though with my left handed method of combined knitting I’m actually knitting the right front.  Don’t ask. 

So very neat how it is coming out, especially with such a good match in the yarns.  The Quattro blends in beautifully with the 220 solid.  Kat should be adorable in this sweater.  I might go out on a limb and predict that this could, repeat could, be her Rhinebeck sweater, but no guarantees here!

As mom drove to the arena today, I have an hour and a half in the passenger seat each way.  I’m not used to that and it took me almost 45 minutes to realize that I wasn’t driving and could knit.  I pulled out the second koigu sock (which got a workout Friday night in front of BSG) and got a bit more done.  Hopefully I’ll be crossing another item off the current WIP list shortly.  So many projects (and wannabee projects – got an order from Simply Socks Yarn of Jawoll in an orange to try Bayerische again ) and so very little time.

Speaking of time, I realized that with the advent of the twins third birthday, this blog was going to be celebrating its second anniversary.  My first post was Oct 11 and on Blogger as I was pretty sure I was going to hate blogging and wanted the free one first.  Writing was never my thing and really, who would even read what I had to write. I was smitten and haven’t looked back since.   This community of ours is one I wouldn’t trade for the world.  We’ve been through the ups and downs together.  You all made the events of this past year so much tolerable and that much better for me. 

And to thank you as best I can requires yarn prezzies.  Since Lisa is celebrating her first blogiversary by having a drawing, I’m going to do the same.  Each comment during the month of October will enter you into a drawing for the swag.  I have some goodies in stash and easy access to other niceties (including 2 days at Rhinebeck) that I would love to someone, or two, or three (one to grow on) to celebrate these past wonderful two years. 

Craft on!

Wait long enough (though is an hour really that long) and have a stash of patterns and yarn big enough and the answer to a problem usually presents itself. 

Last night after the most excellent 2 hours of Battlestar Galactica were over, I did a little digging in the patterns subdirectory on my hard drive (memo to self:  save to cd for safety sake already) I tripped on the Knitty childHood pattern that I saved ages ago.  While the sweater is not a top down in the round raglan, I do like the shape of it and it passed Miss K’s approval test. 

I toyed with the doing the sweater in a solid, but then it would be very much like Alex’s sweater from last year.  I have plenty of Cascade on hand, thanks to the current obsession with it, including some the Deb bought a while ago (color 7803) and had second thoughts about recently.  (Which reminds me, I still owe you a check, don’t I?  Mail or Rhinebeck?)  Anyway, I liked the whole color thing on the borders, sleeves and hood. 

It was then my brain started trying to dig up a mental color card of the Cascade 220 colors.  Heck, most nights at MY, I sit facing the wall o’220.  I vaguely recalled a Quatro that might be good.  So late this morning, as the folks were heading up to the boat to start the winterizing process and getting it ready to be pulled from the water, I piled the monkeys into the car and headed off to MY with a skein of 7803 in my purse.  While the children colored (they remembered that the store had crayons from their very first visit there back in the spring and asked about them on the way), I fiddled with combinations of cascade.  I found the perfect match.  Quattro in 9440.  Which coincidentally is the same color that I bought way way back in my first trip to MY during the Montclair yarn crawl with Deb.  One ply of the Quattro is the same shade as the 220.  How perfect can you get?   

We stopped for lunch at a local pizzeria, Kat insisting on ‘chicken nuggies’, and now the monkeys are taking a nap.   I’m now ready to get knitting.

Craft on!

I’m going to borrow from Carole and wonderful method of posting the Good and Bad.

Good:  I finished the knitting on the Baby Surprise Sweater.

I love the colors, even if I don’t love that there are a million (or so it seems) ends that need to be woven into this thing.  I love how the random stripes look and probably use the technique again…

..because I’m going to have to…

Bad: It doesn’t fit.

No way is this going to fit a 3 year old toddler, even a small one at that.  I have it sitting on top of a 24mos Gymboree sweater (thank you again Nancy) that still fits the little miss.  You see how short the sleeves come up against the pink sweater.  It is also a bit narrow around the body. 

Yes, I did read somewhere that on the worsted weight it would fit a 1+ year old and I’m not sure what I was thinking that would mean.  1+ doesn’t mean a 3 though.  Fortunately it wasn’t a huge time suck as I started it late Sunday night and finished it this afternoon.

Good:  The redeeming value from this, I now have a baby girl gift ready to go.  Handy too since my coworker’s wife who is expecting is having a girl.  I just need to sew up the sleeve/shoulder seam, put some buttons on (oh yeah and weave in the million ends) the gift is done.

I have a couple of ideas running around my head as a possibility for another sweater for Miss K.  I  had the thought that I could shrink down  Ribby Cardi or Twist and make a toddler sized version for her.  I would like to do something in the round, top down in one of the plethora of yarns I’ve collected recently for her, including the remaining Cascade Superwash (took way less than the 3 skeins to complete the BSS), 220 in a Fuscia, or even the Dolly that I bought originally for her Dale sweater.  This basic pattern would come in handy.  Such choices.

I’m so ready for the season premiere of Battlestar Galactica tonight.  Wouldn’t you know it, my digital cable box is refusing to show the SciFi channel today.  Any time I turn it on, I get a picture which then freezes and disintegrates into a million little digital pieces and then the whole works goes to grey.  Might just have to leave my room to watch this as I am so not going to miss it.

Have a good weekend..

Craft on!

I have the long promised pictures of the current active WIPS. 

First up (and now this picture is a tad out of date as I’ve made serious progress since it was taken), is Kat’s  Baby Toddler Surprise Sweater.  As a reminder it is in three different colors of Cascade Superwash.  The pink and turquoise are reading pretty true in this picture but the purple isn’t quite that dark.  I’m using a random progression of stripes and am really enjoying it.  As of this morning’s commute, I 5 ridges into the increase.  Pretty far into it on a row count. 

But honestly, I’m knitting on faith as right now, I just can’t picture in my head how the whole thing folds and the seams that are sewn.  Fortunately, I have faith in EZ and have seen this finished by a gillion other knitters on the net.

Next up is Ariann.  I’m a good way into this super sweater too.  I’m trying to do a little on at least two projects each day.  Yesterday was the TSS and Ariann.  I accomplished another inch on Ariann while watching Tuesday’s Veronica Mars that the DVR captured for me.  (As a quiet aside, I bit the bullet and opted for the cable box with the integrated DVR for my room. 
Dad pays for the movie package, but we could only watch it in the kitchen, where the folks had located the box.  Yeah, not my favorite place to watch long movies.   As a bonus, this DVR can record two programs at the same time, which my ReplayTV cannot do, sweet.)  Where was I?  Oh yeah, knitted last knit while watching TV.   Not too much longer before I put this piece aside and knit the sleeves.  I orderer the long cables from Knitpicks last night so I can magic loop them.  Totally digging this sweater.

Finally, in interest of full disclosure, not to mention fairness to the monkeys, I started a pair of socks for the boy.  Last week I picked up some Claudia Handpainted in Spring Break at MY and the sock in the purse project.  I can’t say as I’ve done much knitting on it, but I haven’t gone out to lunch recently with the coworkers and needed waiting knitting.  Fortunately, the boy tends to be a bit more patient with the knitted goods than his sister.  Who, incidentally, demanded to see how her "yarn" was yesterday morning as I tried to get them into the car to go off to preschool/daycare.

Speaking of the youngins, Monday is their 3rd birthday.  No way.  Where did the last three years go????  Sunday, mom and I are taking them to the Sovereign Bank Arena in Trenton to see The Doodlebops in concert.  Weee.  Monday is a school field trip to a local farm to pick pumpkins.  I took the day off and will be going as a chaperone.  Monday night is a power squadron dinner that we all go to (the kids are the group mascots where they plan on celebrating the birthday with a cake.  It just gets busier from there as Wednesday is a birthday party for one of the little kids in their class and next Sunday, we are having a party for them.  Whew.  I’m tired already! 

Need to rest up after that for RHINEBECK!   I’ll post a reminder about the whole bingo thing closer to the event.  YAY!

That should do it for today.. time to get some lunch.

Craft on!

The knitting on the various and sundried projects continues.  I had hoped to post pictures of the various doodads today, but got swamped and it will have to wait until tonight or tomorrow. 

Oh and I had to take advantage of the special employee discount and buy my new winter
coat.    I just couldn’t pass up 60% of now could I?  And I did need a good new wool coat.

Anyway.. I leave you with this meme that I found around and finally filled out myself…

The Name Game

I’m never going to whittle down the WIP list with the rate at which I cast on projects.  At least I finished one before starting 3.  And one of those was killed very early in the process too, but we’ll get back to that.

I finished Kat’s socks Thursday night at the MY SnB as I’d hoped. 

Project Details:

Pattern:  Mine over 48 st
Yarn:  Lisa Souza Sock! in What-A-Melon colorway
Started:  9/24
Finished: 9/28

The happy little girl wore them to preschool/daycare on Friday.  Gosh I love a quick project.  Cross the Kat’s socks off the WIP list.

Thursday I bounded off to Purl to pick up the yarn for Bayerische.  Thursday night, after finishing Kat’s socks, I cast on using the white (seen pink in the pathetic treo photo).  By the time I called it quits for bed, I had gotten the ribbing done and had started the first of the patterning.  Here you can tell the yarn is actually a pure white.  (Incidentally, I learned the the Louet Gems is the white yarn that is used by others to make their Handpainted sock yarns.)  After finishing the first repeat and a half of the cableing, I was just not happy at how it looked.  The gapping around the stitches, I think they were just too sharp.  I’m going to try it with a less tightly twisted yarn, or order the Jawoll that Eunny used.  But I pulled needles from it without getting another picture.  Oh well.  Maybe I’ll use this yarn to play with a little dyeing myself.

So while Bayerische never made it to the WIP list (heck it started and killed in less than 24 hours), I don’t have to pull it off.  I’m also going to be putting Kat’s Dale sweater on hold and out of active too.  I just can’t bring myself to do it.  And well, I started a new sweater for her.  I picked up some Cascade Superwash (amongst some other things at MY’s one year anniversary sale on Sunday) in a purple and teal.  Augmenting with some bright pink that I bought there in the spring (IIRC the visit where Deb and I met Wendy) and am doing a randomly striped EZ Baby Surprise Sweater.  I had a random number generator pick 100 numbers with a minimum of 1 and a max of 9, and display in 3 columns.  Each column represents one of the colors and controls the number of garter ridges of that color.  I started this last night and am now around row 27.  The garter stitch is a nice break from all the stockinette flat knitting that I’ve been doing recently.  Hopefully tonight I’ll snap a good shot of this pretty little thing.

I did make some progress on Ivy and am 4 repeats into the stockinette of the back.  I try to work on it a little each day (HA!).  It really hasn’t progressed too much further since the last picture so I really don’t have anything to show.  The drape is lovely and the fabric is wonderful.  As an aside, Kat saw the bag of the Lavold Silky Wool sitting in the yarn basket and demanded a sweater for her made out of it.  Pushy little kid she is! 

I couldn’t hold out, I just had to start working on Ariann.  Especially with a KAL formed by Bonne Marie herself!  So Friday evening (or was it Saturday, the 3 day weekend really threw me for a loop), I dug out the Plymouth Galway that I had started Eris in, oh so long ago.  Sadly that sweater never amounted to anything more than about half the collar.  After over a year, it was only mercy that required me to pronounce it.  I’ve reclaimed the yarn, whose color I so totally love, and gave it a new purpose in life.  The gauge is spot on for the pattern and I like the resulting fabric.  I cast on and what with the long weekend (and knitting to get through the fast yesterday!) I made it well into the increase portion above the waist.  Totally digging the pattern.  Will also try and get a good picture of it tonight too.  It has proven difficult in the past to photograph well as the colors change depending on light.  Love it.

Well time to get some lunch,

Craft on!